St James's R.C. Church, Ballynadrentagh Road, Aldergrove, Crumlin, Co Antrim

St James's Roman Catholic Church stands on a corner site in rural Ballynadrentagh Road near Aldergrove, Crumlin, County Antrim. Built between 1824 and 1827 as an enlargement of an earlier church dating from 1815–16, it is an early 19th-century building in Gothic style exhibiting vernacular treatment of the architectural manner. The church retains the essence of its original character and appearance despite changes made to the front entrance porch and surrounding area.

The building is cruciform in plan, comprising a nave, transepts, and an eastern projection containing a shallow chancel and sacristy. The main entrance faces west. Roofs are laid with Bangor blue slates in regular courses with black ridge tiles. Walls are rendered with wet dash of crushed stones and painted white, with projecting rendered eaves course and a smooth cement rendered plinth painted black. Stone crosses, painted white with new lead dressing to their bases, sit on the apex of each gable. Rainwater goods have not yet been fixed in place.

The west gable features a small circular window above a flat-roofed projecting porch, which has been newly rendered but not yet painted, with lead covering to the roof and dressing to the cornice. The main entrance is a large rectangular doorway in the centre of the west face of the porch, newly created, with doors not yet fixed. The porch has one small window in each side wall: new Gothic-headed timber fixed lights of 6 panes with tracery lights, which replaced original doorways. These have projecting concrete cills and smooth cement render to reveals and arris.

The nave contains two windows in each side wall. These are original Gothic-headed timber sliding sashes, vertically hung with 3-over-6 panes and horns with intersecting glazing bars to tracery lights. They have projecting sandstone cills painted white; reveals and arris are finished as in the porch windows. The transepts each have one window in their side walls, original and matching those of the nave. The transept gables are blank except for two newly created circular ventilation holes in each, positioned just below the eaves line.

The eastern projection has one larger Gothic-arched timber window, a 6-pane fixed light with intersecting glazing bars to tracery lights, which is a new replacement for a damaged original. The south side wall has two small Gothic-headed timber fixed lights matching those of the porch: one lights the chancel and one lights the sacristy accommodation. The north side wall has one similar small window lighting the sacristy, with a rectangular doorway to its left; the door has not yet been fitted.

The church was maliciously burnt in July 1998 and was reinstated in 1999. A gallery was added at an unrecorded date. The front porch was added by 1920. The old holy water stoup is reputedly from the earlier church of Templepatrick. Until the new doorway was created in the centre of the west wall of the entrance porch in 1999, a stone cross slab with iron railings enclosing the burial plot of Reverend John McAreevy (who died in 1868) stood immediately in front of the porch, along with an old stone font or trough on a painted stone pedestal to the west. Both were removed by September 1999 to be relocated, one to each side of the porch. In the 1830s the church floor was described as being of earth. Reverend MacMullan, who was responsible for the enlargement and rebuilding of the original church in 1824, was buried inside the church in front of the altar in 1841.

The church stands in its own grounds, set back from the main road on a corner site facing it. The churchyard is laid out with graves in grassed areas all round the building. A short driveway leads from the main road to the front of the church, with a path running all round the perimeter walls. Modern concrete kerbstones are being laid to the paths, though the surface is not yet finished. Grassed banks slope upward from the path on the south side. Mature yew trees surround the churchyard. The parish memorial of note is that of Reverend John McAreevy, formerly positioned against the front wall of the porch as a cross slab on a rough stone front with a white painted stone pedestal in front of it. The rear and side boundaries are formed by hedges. The front boundary has been altered with the gateway set back toward the church; new boundary wall links are of concrete blockwork, not yet rendered. Gate piers are of red brickwork with yellow brick dressings to corners; caps have not yet been reinstated and gates have not yet been fitted.